Brad Cummings | Add another to the 'Conservatarian Movement'

It wasn't but a few months ago I felt completely at ease with the Patriot Act and its tangled web of protections for the American people. While I'm no fan of big government, on matters of protecting our well-being, I was OK with them having some leeway when tracking down those wishing us harm. Every president of my adult life has had the American people's safety at the top of their priority list. It's not like an organization as ethically impenetrable as the National Security Agency could ever be corrupted.

But then a funny thing happened on my way to Naivete City. A scandal hit the Internal Revenue Service, an organization I had held with equal esteem and trust. Most people don't like the IRS, but they have trusted their unbiased approach to revenue collection since its inception. That trust is the foundation of their influence. That trust, for many, is gone.

For those of you living under a rock the last month or so, the IRS has been accused of profiling tea party groups and those who identify with them using keywords like "patriot" and "constitution" in their submissions. (What kind of backward world do we live in when those words are flagged as bad words anyway? I remember a time not too long ago when calling yourself a patriot wasn't a partisan thing, it was an American thing.) Furthermore, the National Organization for Marriage, with which I disagree, allegedly had their rights violated to an even greater degree by having their donor list leaked to the rival organization Human Rights Campaign.

But the casualties in this war on trust go beyond the IRS. Now with the revelation that our government has our phone records and access to our emails, this trust deficit should make every American nervous. Even if you are a Democrat all in with our current president, there will be a Republican in office again, perhaps in 2016 if President Obama's administration keeps finding itself mired in scandal. We could all make the mistake of living too much in the now.

I wish I lived in a world in which I felt comfortable with the NSA and other security groups having access to my information. I wish I felt I could trust without question or concern. I also wish I was the starting first baseman for the Chicago White Sox and yet now that somehow seems like the least naive of my wishes.

I'm conflicted on my feelings about Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old contracted analyst who leaked the NSA's secret surveillance programs on phone calls, text messages and emails. He's a traitor by any real definition of the word and yet I believe his motives were patriotic. That's just too much heat to bring on yourself for a few minutes of fame.

And even this weekend, Snowden has been vindicated to a degree. In a new classified briefing, the NSA has acknowledged it does not need a court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls, but instead "simply based on an analyst deciding that." And because the same legal standards apply to emails, instant messages, and text messages, the entirety of his claims have already been backed up just one week after he came out to the world.

That means the NSA does not need a court order to monitor your phone activity, listen to your calls, or read your emails. Likely or not, the ability for a twentysomething kid to read your emails based on his judgment call seems antithetical to all of the freedoms we have fought so hard to maintain.

Which brings us back to the IRS. A younger, gentler me would have seen these NSA revelations and shrugged. Safety is so important and after all, I'm not doing anything to be concerned about as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., points out at every chance he gets, like a paid non-attorney spokesperson for our security agencies. But with the corruption and invasion of privacy allegedly committed by the IRS now on the table, I see what my libertarian friends have been harping about ever since the Patriot Act was passed. More than any other single event in my lifetime, the NSA monitoring revelation on the heels of the IRS scandal has caused a significant shift in my political thinking.

I'm not calling myself a full-fledged, card-carrying Libertarian. That train of thought taken to its illogical conclusion can lead to completely unregulated markets and a cold view on the plight of the poor in our country. I'm no Ayn Rand.

Instead, I find myself part of a burgeoning political philosophy that combines elements of traditional conservative and libertarian viewpoints - a fiscal hawk protective of our national spending and worried about our mounting national debt; a social moderate who strongly believes in the pro-life cause but sees gay marriage as much ado about nothing, marijuana as the safer drug when compared to the already legal alcohol, and a vocal supporter of expanded gaming; and a strong proponent of a robust military that should stop acting as the world's police force. I was wrong about the Iraq War. There, I said it.

As the world shrinks through social media, we'll have a greater appetite for this sort of diverse thinking.

No longer do people feel the need to throw in with an entire political party's platform, instead looking at each issue and choosing for themselves. It is this fiscally conservative, socially moderate vein combined with the overarching desire to draw down our international conflicts and defend our civil liberties that is the growth sector of our political thought.

I've come to realize I'm not a conservative in the traditional sense of the word. Nor am I libertarian. I'm part of a new political identity - a "conservatarian." Judging from the political discourse in our country right now, I have a feeling I'm not alone.

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Brad Cummings | Add another to the 'Conservatarian Movement'

It wasn't but a few months ago I felt completely at ease with the Patriot Act and its tangled web of protections for the American people.